Reviews

Frozen Hearts and Death Magic by Day Leitao

carola84's review against another edition

2.0

I liked that it’s written from multiple pov’s and the cover looks good. Unfortunately these are the only good things about this book by my opinion. It lacked of depth and its very childish.

introverted_readerz's review against another edition

4.0

I was not expecting to like this book as much as I did. It starts off as this world where humans are against the fae, but not everything is as it seems

This book also has multiple POVs, each of them with their own separate story to tell. Mainly Naia, Fel, Leah and River. Out of the four of them, my favorite Fel but my favorite storyline has got to be Naia and River's story.

I think that's one issue I have with the book. I think that there's too many sub-plots happening at the same time (Naia and River is one, while Fel and Leah is the other), and when we switch POVs, there's no indication on whose POV it is.

I think I would have liked it more if we separated the storylines like by adding a part one and part two.

The world building got me very interested. Eventhough we haven't been shown what all the kingdoms in the story look like, its clear to say that they are all different in their own way. Even the villains in the story are really well written. So much so that they're actions really annoy me

hasnita_singh's review against another edition

4.0

This was overall a good read that was fun and full of interesting characters. Considering it’s telenovela inspired, I loved the secrets, the lies and the drama!!! I absolutely ate it up.

My favourite character was probably Fel, 4 stars simply for him. In the next book, I’m excited to see the characters grow into their abilities and themselves. Some of Naia’s chapters bored me a little, I felt like I couldn’t understand her motives sometimes.

The romances were great. Fel and Leah were my favourite. The forbidden element, the misunderstanding, back to enemies, everything. The angst!!! So good!! Naia’s enemies to lovers didn’t really feel like enemies - the development into lovers was too rapid.

For an upper YA, the characters behaved a little too immature but it’s YA so I can’t fault it too much. Some of the darker themes did catch me off guard so I recommend taking a look at trigger warnings.

novelbloglover's review against another edition

adventurous emotional hopeful mysterious sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

 

Book Review 

Title: Frozen Hearts & Death Magic by Day Leitao (Of Fire & Fae Book 1) 

Genre: Fantasy, Romance 

Rating: 4.5 Stars 

The opening to Frozen Hearts & Death Magic was really interesting as we are introduced to the twin royals, Naia and Fel. The siblings both possess iron magic but Fel’s is far stronger than Naia’s which leads to her feeling discontent with her life and the future ahead of her so she sneaks out one night. In the forest close to her home she finds an unconscious White Fae and rather than turning him in she rescues him. After he wakes up she learns his name is River and the pair chat for a while bantering back and forth and Naia asks for a kiss in return for rescuing him which River provides. However, River knows Naia has done something which causes him to disappear but Naia has no clue what that was and a year later there is still no sign of River even though Naia is pining for him. It is around this time they are attending a meeting of all the royals in Aluria hosted by the parents of Leah, a necromancer princess and I have a feeling things are going to get very interesting from her. 

As we approach the ¼ mark in the novel, Leah ends up meeting both Fel and Naia when the young royals go ice skating but this is interrupted by the appearance of a whitesnake. Now these are known to be sea creatures so one turning up and attacking people on a frozen lake is highly unusual but it does show us how powerful Fel is and the blossoming attraction between Fel and Leah. Leah isn’t supposed to be meeting any of these royals until her introduction since her primary goal is finding a husband but she has been warned against choosing Fel for multiple reasons but she has also been told not to choose a crown Prince she has her own Kingdom to look after and they won’t live there, they will expect her to live with them. By the time the introduction ball happens, Fel is already beginning to fall for Leah and she is falling for him, that very night he proposes and she accepts but Fel has to convince her parents to allow the match since he will give their Kingdom to Naia but their family is hated by the other Kingdoms. His father believes it to be a stupid and foolish idea but does allow it as long as Leah’s parents accept the match. Meanwhile, Naia sees a man that looks exactly like River but she doesn’t get a chance to talk to him until much later as he is with her mother’s family who refuse to speak to them and Naia isn’t allowed to approach them. She learns that the man is River and when they kissed she did something to him that almost killed him which is why he disappeared and he assumed she did it on purpose because he is fae and she puts these fears to rest explaining that she has been worried and feeling guilty and trying to find him for nearly a year. River proposes they get married because this would be an alliance between the humans and the fae that never left the Kingdoms but Naia feels his proposal is cold rather than romantic so she isn’t sure if she is going to accept. 

As we cross the ¼ mark in the novel, things begin to get interesting between our four main characters. Fel does ask Leah’s mother for permission to marry her and he seemingly gets permission from her but when Leah writes him a note to ask how it went her mother obviously tampered with it. Fel receives a note claiming to be from Leah rejecting him because of his disability which isn’t what Leah sent at all and she doesn’t understand his response because of this and she thinks he was messing with him to begin with. Leah then accepts the proposal of the Iron prince making the situation worse for her and Fel. However, the relationship between Naia and River is getting really interesting as a group of white fae attack the Ice palace where the royals are gathered but River intervenes. During this he freezes people meaning they can hear, see or move during this time except Naia which might be because of her magic and he explains he can get rid of the fae and he will do exactly that if she agrees to marry him and she does. That night Naia tries to talk to her brother and he seems to understand only to confront River when he arrives for Naia. River proves enough to Fel that he cares for Naia and he takes her to the underworld but the next morning her father isn’t happy and travels to the underworld to find her but she seems well hidden where she right now but River has to travel back to the Iron Kingdom since he is undercover right now. 

As we approach the halfway mark in the novel, things are not working out well for our main characters and I am excited to see where this goes in the second half. Naia is in the underworld with River only for her father to show up and try to bring her home but for the first time in her life Naia refuses because she wants to be her with River despite the fact fae are seen as the enemy. Her father ends up disowning her and leaving her behind and this leaves her and River to talk. We know he is spying on the Ironholds but we don’t know why and it may have to do with the political move they just made that Naia knows nothing about really. We do get a brief flashback from River to learn more about his past and the secrets he is keeping. Back in the human realm Leah is now married to Venard and taken to the Iron Kingdom but she soon learns that the Ironholds are far more dangerous than she thought. At first they accuse her of being pregnant when this girl knows nothing about sex because she threw up at the wedding. Then she learns that they beat their women into submission and by the time they arrive at the Palace they are confronted by Venard’s lover, Serine who he ends up killing. Leah tries to get a message out to her parents but the Ironholds torture her until she gives up her code and then they lock her up. Leah knows she has to get out but she doesn’t know how she is going to do it and wishes that she was with Fel. 

As we cross into the second half of the novel, Naia ends up going through the forest River told her to stay out of and manages to break through the enchantment using her fire magic. On the other side of the forest she finds the Ancient City which is currently home to several fae in an enchanted sleep. When she returns she finds River worried and panicked because she was missing and explains that he can’t enter the city because of the enchantment and he believes Ironhold is responsible and is spying on them to look for a way to break the enchantment and bring his people back. He also believes he was spared because he was lost in the hollow at the time only to brought out of it by her. We also get more flashbacks where River is posing as a human to find the Dragon Lords and claim a staff that can stop iron magic being used against them since they are currently losing the war thanks to a strange magic the humans have. Naia wants to help River but she doesn’t know what she can do, meanwhile Leah is struggling in Ironhold as she is treated poorly and often hurt or locked up by her new family. She manages to postpone her consummation with Venard until after the wedding party despite already being married but she has been given what is essentially a gold collar and the Ironhold family can manipulate this which is how Venard killed Serine. When Fel is saved from assassins by River, he ends up pretending that he and Naia are dead which gets back to Leah and she uses her necromancy to try and contact Fel. Through this she learns of a plot within Ironhold that the world needs to know about since they have been breeding magic soldiers which they have now sent into every Kingdom except Umbraar. Leah is going to be returning home from Ironhold soon but I don’t think telling her parents about Ironhold and her treatment there is going to be as easy as Leah thinks.  

As we approach the ¾ mark in the novel, I was excited to see how Leitao was going to bring everything together and what sort of revels she would create to set up the second book. Things get even more interesting when River places Naia in an enchanted sleep but she is still aware of everything going on around her and she wants to give River a piece of her mind. In the flashbacks we learn that River was able to get the staff but was trapped by one of the dragon’s enchantment until a mysterious woman potentially a dragon herself frees him and gets him safely back home. There he tells his brother Forest about the staff even after he has destroyed the Umbraar city and River gives him the staff which he claims to have retrieved himself showing that his brother can lie or at least say something that isn’t entirely true. Back in the present, Leah is almost sexually assaulted by Venard’s brother, Cassius but something happens with her magic causing her to kill him and several guards before depositing herself in Fel’s bedroom. After a misunderstanding between the pair Fel takes Leah to his father who helps her return to Ironhold before leaving to check on Leah’s mother who he has feelings for and almost married. He rescue Leah’s mother but ends up lost in the hollow with her and the pair debate what happened between them. Urisanna believe that Fel’s father used her while he believes that Urisanna was unfaithful to him. I also believe that Leah might be Fel’s sister or something close to that which would make sense since Leah’s magic is more like deathbringing than necromancy. Back in Ironhold Leah realises that the reason Cassius was allowed to almost assault her was because Ironhold has no intention of returning her to her own Kingdom and might have already attacked. Her worry for her parents causes her to accidental transport herself there where she is found by some Ironhold guards who she ends up killing before fleeing. Meanwhile, Fel senses that an attack is coming and it is far closer than they believed and he swears to himself that if he survives he is going to claim Leah as his own. 

As we cross into the final section of the novel, everything finally comes together and we see what Ironhold’s plan really is and how the Ancient City came to be the way it was. We also get to see how Leah, Fel and Naia are all connected and the secrets surrounding the births of all three and ties that bind them all together which was amazing to see and some of theories were proven and others were shattered by these reveals. The novels ends with Fel and Leah travelling to the lands of the Dragon Lords since they are the key to everything that is happened while Naia and River have returned to Umbraar shortly after the battle with Ironhold to learn Fel and Leah are gone, her father is nowhere to be found and war is knocking on their door so Naia is going to have to step up and be the leader. The final few scenes between Azir and Urisanna broke my heart especially when he did what he did but I hope we get to see more of this pair in the sequel since there is some interesting potential there depending on which route the author takes with it. The only negative I have were the two main romance were rife with insta-love which isn’t something I like outside of smutty romance novels and it caused a lot of the problems the characters dealt with over the course of the novel but it was definitely worth the read and I would recommend it.           

moonlight_library's review against another edition

5.0

Faes, magic, and dragons all of my favorite things in one book! This was a phenomenal book! I was hooked from the beginning and quickly fell in love with Naia and River! I loved that in each chapter it jumped between characters to get a sense of what was going on but also learn about everyone's secrets and hidden powers. This was such a good book. I felt really bad for Leah but man she turned into such a badass! Naia was also someone I felt bad for, for like a split second, she's persistent when she wants to do something. And Fel hes so strong and hes absolutely adorable with Leah! I can't wait for the next book to see what happens!

cheezyreads's review against another edition

4.5

I was gifted a copy of Frozen Hearts and Death Magic and by Day Leitao an exchange for an honest review.

Frozen Hearts and Death Magic is a multiple-pov ya fantasy novel with its own magical system. It is a fantastically written interwoven story that just keeps the reader on their toes. I loved the fact that we (the readers) get to see what is happening through the eyes of each of the main characters (Leah, Fel,  Naia, and River). I also love how the past is so entwined with the main characters current lives, and how much it impacts everything they're going through. 

Sidenote: I dispise the Ironhold's so much, that family is just horrible!! Just so much about them enrages me.


I am looking forward to book two in the duology. 

cricklewood's review against another edition

slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? N/A
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

1.5

After much reflection and thought, I have decided that I ... didn't <i>not</i> like this book.

But it just wasn't great. I feel like the plot and idea had some promise, and it would have delivered had it been another author who had penned this. As is, the characters were flat, the writing incredibly juvenile (how could a young maiden <i>not</i> know what sex was? why were queens talking like twelve year olds? what is happening), the every twist and turn predictable, a lot of annoying tropes that kept resurfacing again and again (insta-love, the "I didn't know how beautiful I was" girl trope etc.) and in many places it read like a wish fulfillment fanfic. 

It was just ... not great. 

sunflowersdragonflies's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

I really liked this story. The world and how the magic works was really interesting to me and honestly if I could adventure in this world I would. I loved the characters so much and the story every time I thought I had it figured out, something else was thrown at me keeping me on my toes and I really liked it a lot. I honestly can’t wait to see what happens in the next book. 

the_bookarazzi's review against another edition

4.0

When I read the blurb and saw the cover of this book I knew I had to read it. Frozen Hearts and Death Magic is a book set in the world of dark magic with some intriguing elements like different supernaturals, political conspiracy, unpredicted twists and a dark and tricky plot.

I loved the MCs and their development is the best. The writing style and multiple POVs kept me hooked till the end. Fantasy lovers, this book is a treat for you.

mar1amreads's review against another edition

adventurous funny mysterious tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0